---
title: SQLite
header: Official Drivers
layout: ../../../layouts/MainLayout.astro
---

import RenderConnectionOptions from '../../../components/RenderConnectionOptions.tsx';

# SQLite Start Guide

## 1. Prerequisites

- Have Node.js (version 14 or later) and npm installed. Some instructions are available [here](https://docs.npmjs.com/downloading-and-installing-node-js-and-npm).
- Configure the `sqltools.useNodeRuntime` setting. It can be set to `true` to perform auto-detect of your Node runtime, or to the full path of the runtime.
  - For successful auto-detect on Windows we recommend that VS Code is be configured to use `PowerShell` as its default terminal shell. If set to `Command Prompt` or `Windows PowerShell`, auto-detect may fail.
  - An example of a string value for a Windows environment is `"C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe"`. Notice how backslashes in a JSON string have to be doubled.

```json
// settings.json example
{
  "sqltools.useNodeRuntime": true
}
```

Upon first use the SQLite driver extension prompts for permission to install the [node-sqlite3](https://www.npmjs.com/package/sqlite3)@5.1.1 package. During installation this package downloads its platform-specific prebuilt binaries. See the package documentation for details.

## 2. Connections

### 2.1 SQLite's Easy Connect Syntax

SQLite's connections handle files so you can use the example below as reference to connect to your database file:

```json
{
  "name": "SQLite",
  "driver": "SQLite",
  "database": "./sqlite/test_db.db", // if you use a relative path the base folder is the currently open folder (or workspace).
  "connectionTimeout": 15
}
```

<RenderConnectionOptions client:only="react" include={['name', 'dialect', 'database', 'connectionTimeout']} />
